Dr. Emily Schulten Weekley Named 2024 Poet Laureate

Mayor Teri Johnston and the City Commission have named Dr. Emily Schulten Weekley the 2024 Poet Laureate of Key West.

Key West has been home to some of the most important poets of the past century, including Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, and Richard Wilbur. American literature has been enriched by poetic descriptions of Key West’s history, environment, and culture; and the Key West Poet Laureate is the official poet of Key West.

Schulten Weekley is a nationally recognized poet and the author of three collections of poetry and has been published widely in prominent literary journals.

She is an award-winning poet, and her accolades include such as winning the 2023 White Pine Press Poetry Prize and the 2023 Geri DiGiorno Prize. She was a finalist for a 2023 Eric Hoffer Award, the recipient of a 2017 Tennessee Williams Scholarship from the Sewanee Writers Conference, and winner of the 2016 Erskine J. Prize for Poetry.

Schulten Weekley is an English professor at The College of the Florida Keys where she teaches poetry and creative writing. She works with students in an extra-curricular capacity on projects like student poetry prizes, literary journals, open mic readings, and a creative writing club.

and she created and is the director of CFK Poetics, a visiting poet series at The College of the Florida Keys that since 2019 brings poets of national acclaim to Key West for readings and lectures that are open to the community; and

Schulten Weekley follows in the footsteps of several other well-known poets who have served as the city’s official poet including Kirby Congdon, Flower Conroy, and Arlo Haskell.

Schulten Weekley accepted the proclamation with her husband Dakin Weekley and son Otis.

“I was told by my father-in-law here,” she said, referring to Commissioner Jimmy Weekley, “that I might be in big trouble if I don’t read a poem.”

And so, she treated the audience to a selection from her upcoming collection “Island of Bones.”